Meet our Undergraduate Student Bloggers
What is it like to study English at Carleton? Get the complete story, month-by-month, from our student blogger and read the archived blogs of English BA graduates.
Sam Bean
BA Honours English, 2022; MA English, ongoing
Sam Bean is a first-year Master’s Student in English Literature with a Climate Change Specialization. He is a free-floating writer who has worked for the Charlatan, a dubious tech startup and the Ottawa Art Gallery Communications team. He also writes poetry in his spare time. He is from Mississauga but insists that everyone back home calls it ‘M-Town.’ [read more]
Noah Bendzsa
B.A. Honours English, ongoing
Noah Bendzsa is a fourth-year Honours English student. They studied mathematics and chemistry, successfully and unhappily, until discovering that they could study novels and short stories instead. Although they sometimes miss hearing about “Gödel and His Problems,” they have not looked back. In their spare time not spent reading, they enjoy going for walks and hikes. They are a would-be Peakser, so long as they don’t wash up “wrapped in plastic.” [read more]
Jaclyn Legge
B.A. Honours English, ; MA English, ongoing
Jaclyn Legge is a 3rd or 4th-year student returning to full-time student life after completing Co-op. She spends her free time calling to the muses for inspiration in her writing, drawing, and shower-dancing routines. Her poetry has been published in Bywords.ca. No, she doesn’t want to be a teacher; she considers herself a student in every aspect of life. [read more]
Manahil Bandukwala
B.A. Honours English, ongoing
Manahil Bandukwala is a fourth-year English major in the Co-op Program. She enjoys writing and painting. Her chapbook of poetry and illustrations Pipe Rose was published in 2018. She is currently an editor of In/Words, Carleton’s in-house literary magazine. [read more]
Emily Coppella
B.A. Honours English, with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, 2021
Emily Coppella is an English major (who is currently contemplating a Women’s Studies or Sociology minor.) She devotes her time to writing for Spoon University, doing yoga and becoming more familiar with the Carleton community. She loves debating whether the book or the movie was better and is constantly running out of tea bags. She is anxious to enter into the Creative Writing Concentration and a future co-op position. [read more]
Amanda Seed
B.A. Honours English with a minor in Greek & Roman Studies, 2018; MA English, 2019
Amanda Seed is a fourth-year English Language and Literature major with a minor in Greek and Roman Studies. She is also enrolled in the MA Accelerated Pathway Program and hopes to pursue grad studies at Carleton. She is a piano teacher, a Canterbury Trebles choir member, and a mentor for the FYC program. [read more].
Paige Pinto
B.Hums. Combined Honours in Humanities & English, 2017
Paige Pinto is a fifth-year Humanities and English major and is currently a co-president of the English Literature Society. She is interested in Romantic poetry and has something of a love-hate relationship with Jane Austen. She spends most of her day drinking coffee and thinking about fictional characters. One of Paige’s great passions is the discussion and sharing of creative writing. [read more]
Erin Shields
B.A. Honours English, 2016
Erin Shields completed her undergraduate honours degree in English. As of Fall 2017, Erin is attending UCLA law school on full scholarship. Erin is especially interested in language and the way ideas about narrative can be applied to everyday experience. She enjoys reading (obviously), tea (because she is a proud cliché), travel (she packed her suitcase post-graduation and doesn’t plan on staying put until she must), music (which she studied seriously for a number of years), and peanut butter (all-natural, salted, creamy.) [read more]
Olivia Polk
B.A. Honours English, 2015
Olivia Polk is graduate of the English literature program at Carleton currently working towards an MA in English at McMaster University, and intends to write a thesis on the works of Miriam Toews. She served as the department’s undergraduate blogger for the 2014-2015 school year, though she is most comfortable hunkered over a precariously tall pile of books in the MacOdrum library, well into her third cup of coffee. Topics of her posts include: the Ottawa Writers’ Festival, the weird and wonderful world of slam poetry, her enduring preoccupation with the novelist Miriam Toews, performance anxiety, and grammar: why English majors love it and linguists hate it.
In her other life, she has had the privilege of serving as a child and youth worker for local health and resource centres in Ottawa, and also worked as a peer helper with the Bounce Back and First-in-Family programs here at Carleton. [read more]
Meet our Undergraduate Co-op Bloggers
Are you a current or prospective English student interested in the Co-op Program option? Interested in finding out what it’s like to do a placement? Read on.
Alexandra MacKenzie
B.A. Honours, English & History (Co-op), May 2019
Alex was born and raised in Ottawa and started out as a keen Journalism student at Carleton. After some time in university, and much debate, she decided that English and History would be a better fit for her. She now spends most of her time reading countless pages about early Canadian trade expeditions, the Venetian wine fountain, and the adventures of the Faerie Queene – and she loves every minute of it.
After completing her first co-op term working as a Junior Policy Analyst for the Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP), she was invited to stay for the following work term to take on new roles and learn new things. Her role has shifted to communications and outreach tasks that involve a lot more research, writing and event planning and she’s excited to face new challenges
Read Alex’s blog here.
Alicia Haniford
B.A. Honours, English, June 2017
Alicia is a fourth-year English major who ended up in the Carleton co-op program when she accidentally picked up the wrong university brochure. Luckily it caught her attention, because Carleton turned out to be the right university after all, and so far she’s taken full advantage of the English department’s creative writing and co-op studies options.
She was runner up for the Fall 2013 ELS flash fiction contest, and she continues to spend slightly too much time hunched over her computer and typing furiously. After developing an interest in Aboriginal issues through her second-year Canadian literature course, Alicia completed her first co-op work term as a junior policy analyst at Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. In the winter of 2015, she completed her second co-op work term at the Department of Justice.
Read Alicia’s blog here.
Bryanne Mitton
B.A. Combined Hons., English and French, February 2016
Bryanne claims that she knew she would take co-op even before she had chosen her majors. She volunteered as a Co-op and Career Student leader in the fall of 2013. Following two co-op work terms at the Canada Revenue Agency, she won the prestigious CU Co-op Student of the Year Award. In the summer of 2014 Bryanne completed her fourth co-op placement with the Department of Public Safety. She is currently pursuing an MA, International Affairs, at Carleton University.
Read Bryanne’s blog here.